Korean J Nucl Med.  1998 Feb;32(1):1-9.

New Imaging Technique in Myocardial Perfusion SPECT

• Lee DS

Abstract

Gated myocardial SPECT and attenuation correction gave birth to new insights into the pathophysiology of ischemic myocardial perfusion and function in clinical routine practice. Gated myocardial Tc-99m-compound SPECT improved diagnostic accuracy of coronary artery disease and enabled us to observe motion and thickening of myocardial walls as well as myocardial perfusion at the same time. Quantitative and qualitative assessement of myocardial performance and perfusion let us to understand the myocardial physiology in ischemia and infarction. In every patient who underwent gated perfusion SPECT, we will find ejection fraction, left ventricular volumes and regional wall motion. There are hopes to use gated T1-201 SPECT for the same purpose and to use gated SPECT for evaluation of wall motion and thickening at stress or immediate post-stress. Attenuation correction could improve diagnostic accuracy mainly by increasing normalcy ratio or performance of non-expert physicians. Both gated methods and attenuation correction improved specificity of non-expert physicians in diagnosing patients with moderate pretest likelihood. New imaging techniques will fill the desire of cardiologists examine function and perfusion, and possibly metabolism in their clinical routine practice.

MeSH Terms

Coronary Artery Disease
Hope
Humans
Infarction
Ischemia
Linear Energy Transfer
Metabolism
Parturition
Perfusion*
Physiology
Sensitivity and Specificity
Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon*